“Fundamentally the psychology changed in April because we got less concerned about supply disruptions,” (director of data, pricing and information services at Oil Price Information Service Ben) Brockwell said.

Right now, the oil market is well supplied. Saudi Arabia has pledged to boost production, if necessary, as it did last year when Libyan oil was off the market.

According to Brockwell, the drop in gas prices is also due to several behaviors that don’t include more drilling:

“People have adjusted” to higher gas prices, he said. They’re driving less, have more fuel-efficient vehicles, and use gasoline with more ethanol. Auto sales are robust, and car dealers say buyers are trading in their old clunkers for vehicles that get much better mileage.

All in all, that’s made U.S. gasoline supply “plentiful,” in Brockwell’s words, as fuel stocks at the key storage hub of Cushing, Okla., exceed their five-year average.

In fact, said Brockwell, the U.S. has become a net exporter of gasoline, with over half of that going to Mexico.

There’s all kinds of resistance to giving the President credit here, but the fact that they dropped off the shelf right after his oil speculation speech (which followed a clever March bluff at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) sure is compelling.

If gas prices do continue to fall into the summer, that could help the rst of the economy, giving consumers more money to spend, and increasing demand, and therefore, job creation. Even if the President doesn’t get the credit for falling gas prices, an improved economy definitely benefits him.